When a Kiss is a Prayer

I am often aware when I kiss my children's heads at night that the act of my lips touching their hair is more than a gesture between parent and child, it is a prayer...a word of thanks and awe to the divine.

Today many of us have been glued to the television or internet following word of too many lives cut too short in Connecticut.  We have watched the tears of our president, we have anticipated updates from our newscasters, we have cried at the reality of others' pain.  And all of us have been imaging the horror of such an experience being visited upon our families, our communities, our children, our grandchildren.

We have hugged our children a little tighter.

We have been a little gentler and a little more patient with them.

And our kisses today have truly become our prayers...

As we have given thanks for the lives of these wondrous little ones among us...

As we have sat in awe of the love that bursts from our hearts at the mere mention of them...

As we have wondered how we would survive the loss of one of them...

As we have asked God to help we humans become more human...

As we have asked God to offer protection...

As we have said thank you for God's presence and love even when we don't understand.

Choosing December's Language (Not a post about cussing)

As is typical of me I have seen glimpses of a conversation without really knowing where it started nor participating in it.  However, I am going to comment on it.  :)

The conversation I've been hearing is about calling a Christmas tree a holiday tree.  Which is simply a follow up to other conversations in the past about store clerks saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas."  And both of these have a connection to conversations about whether nativities should be displayed on lawns of county courthouses. 

Before saying anything else, let me say that my thoughts are based in the following assumptions: It is okay to be Christian and to claim that. It is also okay to be not only sensitive but respectful about the people who are not.

So, for what they are worth, here are some thoughts...

When you see "Xmas" it doesn't mean someone is x-ing Christ out of Christmas.  In fact, "X" is the Greek letter chi which is the first letter of the word Christ.  "Xmas" is proper shorthand for the word Christmas.  (Technically, so a college professor told me, it would be shorthanded starting with a letter that combines the letters for chi and rho - the first two Greek letters in Christ - but since our keyboards are not equipped that way, "X" will have to do).

What about greeting from clerks?  Personally, I am delighted when a clerk tells me "Happy Holidays."  Unless I am in a store that claims a particular faith (say a Christian bookstore) I believe it is not only a safe but a kind assumption to believe that some of your customers will be other than Christian.  Therefore, it makes sense to give a greeting of the season without presuming to know about another's faith.  At the same time, I do and will happily greet my Christian friends with a jubilent "Merry Christmas."

Christmas tree or holiday tree?  Why not consider the circumstances?  A week from today when my  husband and I host a party for our church staff I have no doubt we will all call what is in our living room a Christmas tree.  That is what it is in our home and why we put it up.  However, as I drive past the lighted tree on Main St. in our town, holiday tree might be the best word.  After all, I have the pleasure of knowing many Jewish and Muslim as well as non-faith people here and the tree brings them joy as well.

Here's the thing...perhaps if we spent near as much energy being kind to one another as we do criticizing language (especially language that is meant to include) we might be better off. 

If we are really concerned about the message and meaning of Christmas then let's quit buying more stuff for our family and friends who already have too much stuff and let's use our resources not only to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and visit the lonely, but to work to change systems that keep them in such conditions. 

Perhaps, if we are really concerned with the Christian message we will take down our trees altogether and set up nativities in their place or Advent wreaths around which we gather with our children or friends as we pray that God's will might be done.

Perhaps, if we want the name of Jesus to be known we might want to start living and loving as he did.  And I suspect how we choose our language might just matter to him.


.

When I was growing up I was not told that I couldn't have friendships with certain people.  I wasn't told that kids who made bad choices were to be avoided.  Rather I lived in a household where a safe space was created for those friendships. 

I am certain my mother knew (perhaps not the extent, but) the reality of some of my friends' bad choices.  And I am certain that she treated all of my friends...from my friend who never cussed, never drank, never stayed out past curfew to my friend who drank and smoked pot and said many words that would have made my mother blush...the same. 

It was something I appreciated in my childhood and especially in my teenage years.  It is something that I try to model my parenting after. 

I do not believe that we can avoid every bad influence.  I do not believe that those who make bad choices are to be discarded or considered of little or no worth. 

I do believe that parenting is more about helping our children learn to make good choices than about protecting them from the possibility of bad ones. 

Remind me of what I just wrote because...

My four-year-old has been learning bad words at preschool.  And I don't mean words of the "stupid" and "shut up" variety (though he has learned those, too).  Think of the word that is commonly considered the worst cuss word...and when you get it in your head picture a sweet four-year-old saying it. 

I am working through the urge to demand that the preschool expel the child who is teaching this (and other) words to my four-year-old (as well as his classmates). 

When my four-year-old was about two there was a classmate with a desire to bite who decided that my child was the tastiest.  Day after day my little one would come home with a new bite mark.  I knew the teachers were taking it seriously.  I knew the child had just been put in foster care and was going through a lot.  I knew my child would survive.  I did not demand expulsion.  The biting fascination passed.  My child lost no flesh.

I have been the patient parent.  I believe in being the patient parent.  I believe there is much going on with the four-letter-word-loving four-year-old that being expelled wouldn't help.  I believe my child will be exposed to four-letter-words (as his seven-year-old brother recently was on the school bus) soon enough. 

But hearing it come out of his not-yet-even-in-kindergarten mouth has me in an anxious state. 

And I don't know what to do.

When I consider who I think I am and who I want to be I feel it's fair to put patient and reasonable and compassionate on the list of identifiers.  I'm not feeling very much of any of those. 

Tonight if his teacher tells me that my four-year-old said bad words at school we will go home and I will wash his mouth out with soap (I've only done that one other time and it was when he was one and put his hand in toilet water then in his mouth!).  I have warned him this will happen.  I don't know if it's the right thing to do, but he needs to know that there are consequences for his behavior.  And he will.

But, darn it, he should have never heard the word in the first place (there will be time for that in years to come).  And it's not his fault he did.  It's not his fault that he doesn't understand how bad bad words can be.  But it's his to deal with now.  And his mommy and daddy's to deal with as well.

God is Great

Today I heard a story on the radio about a recent battle.  It included a comment about someone involved saying, "God is great" as he eradicated his enemies.

My heart sank.

Because I do believe that God is great.

And I believe that God's greatness has nothing to do with hate, but with love...
nothing to do with war, but with peace...
nothing to do with me, but with us...
nothing to do with demonizing those who are different, but with valuing them.

It pains me each time I see people use God as an excuse, as a battering ram, as a weapon.

And let's not pretend that it only happens in other places, with other faiths, or with big battles.

As parents, as people who influence children in any role, it is our responsibility to make sure that's not what we do.  It is our responsibility to make sure that our children know the greatness of God's heart, of God's love, of God's compassion, of God's reach...not of our anger or bigotries or prejudices that we try to push off on the divine.

What Should We Worry About?

It is the day after election day.  President Barack Obama will be our president for another four years.

This morning on facebook I saw a friend's post.  It read, "I'm getting worried about our country."  Knowing this friend's political views, I'm guessing it was a response to President Obama's reelection and perhaps the Democratic Senate majority. 

But here's what I want to say...

Perhaps we shouldn't worry about who was elected, whether they were "our" candidate or not.

Perhaps what we should worry about is our lack of desire to work together with people who are different from us.

Perhaps what we should worry about is our tendency to villify those who hold different opinions than ours.

Perhaps what we should worry about is our attitude that if "our" candidates don't win the country is falling apart. 

Perhaps what we should worry about is what our children are learning from our behavior and what it means that we are raising them in a time when we refuse to choose other than to be polarized.

The "Favorite Child Principle"

This last month we've had a class at church on the three faiths of Abraham.  We've had the pleasure of having friends from the local Jewish and Muslim communities as well as a Christian history professor come speak.  I had the privilege last Sunday of presenting the final lesson talking about the importance of interfaith conversation. 

During that lesson I talked about what I've come to call the "Favorite Child Principle." 

I talk about it this way...

One day as my mother, sister, and I sat together mom started talking about something she had read.  It seems a woman had written letters to each of her four children that they were to receive when she died.  In each letter she told each child that he or she was her favorite.  She had also concluded by writing in each letter that the recipient should not tell his or her sibilings, after all their feelings would be hurt.  My mom ended this story by saying to us, "So when you get your letters, don't tell each other."  (You know we will!)

What does that have to do with the three faiths of Abraham, you might ask?  Well, the reality is that often we walk around acting as if we are the "favorite child."  As a Christian, I know Christians do this.  I am sure that there are Jews and Muslims who do as well.  But what if we came to recognize that we were each God's favorite? 

This would make a difference in our interfaith relationships.

This would make a difference in our political battles.  (Is anyone else ready for Nov. 6 to get here?!)

This would make a difference in our family life.

This would make a difference everywhere.

As parents we so often talk about how having child #2 (and 3 and 4 and more) only expanded our hearts to give more love.  In religious circles we talk about the same thing with God...God loving each of us as if there is only one of us.  And yet we often live in ways that are very contrary to these claims.

But what if...what if we would choose to honor the favorite-ness not only in ourselves, but in each other?  What if we didn't need to prove our favorite-ness?  What if instead we could affirm each others'?

What Makes a Christian Family?

Tonight as I was watching Army Wives (one of my favorite television shows) the question of what makes a Christian family was posed.

A young girl was single and pregnant.  She had no family support and could barely manage to take care of herself.  She was honest enough to know this meant raising a child alone would be difficult.  As she came to the point of considering adoption she was connected with a lesbian couple looking for a child.  But she had been raised Christian and wanted her child raised Christian.  She was asking the question of whether these "sinners" could raise her child correctly.

As you have probably already anticipated, the story resolved with her deciding that perhaps this was an appropriate couple with whom to share her baby.  When she went to their home to tell them her decision she said, "I was raised in a Christian family...well, my dad hit my brother and I..." and then she went on to reflect on how if the household of her raising had been more like this household where a lesbian couple was wanting to adopt, perhaps she wouldn't be in this situation.

So, what makes a Christian family? 

Is it two parents...a father and a mother...married to each...married only once?

Sometimes. 

And sometimes it is a single parent...a gay or lesbian couple...a multigenerational family living together...people who are divorced and remarried...two straight partners who remain unmarried...or even a congregation that adopts children (a headline I read the other day).

What makes a Christian family?

Is it people who go to church regularly, who pray at dinner and bedtime, who know their Bible?

Hopefully.

But more than going to church, hopefully it's people who go to church because they've found a loving community where they experience passionate worship, where they find support and challenge as all members of the family continue to grow in faith.  More than praying at set times, hopefully it's people who have developed a deep relationship with God that not only shows up before dinner is tasted, but that informs their living.  More than knowing their Bible, hopefully it's being able to think through the texts, to appreciate not what we want them to say but what they are were and are saying, to be shaped into people of love and compassion by them.

What makes a Christian family?

Maybe it's as simple and as complex as what Micah affirms...doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God.

Maybe it's as simple and as complex as what both the Jewish and Christian scriptures teach...loving God and loving neighbor.

Maybe it's as simple and as complex as compassion and forgiveness and love.